The First Look at DC's Movie Lineup

It's been no secret that the Marvel movies have been killing it at the box office for many years now. In 2008 we saw the release of three huge comic book films. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and The Dark Knight. Now The Dark Knight is easily a movie that transcends being just a comic book movie and becomes something else entirely, but what did the Marvel movies have in common? They were building a shared universe. Something that had never been done before in the world of comic book movies. This is something that Marvel has continued to perfect, adding new movies to their universe every single year. We even got the first great comic book team up on film with the release of the first two Avengers films. Hard to imagine that at one point DC owned the comic book movie world and was even on track to release a Justice League film long before the Avengers movies had even been conceived. Now the general thought of the public is DC must be kicking themselves and trying to rush to a Justice League movie, so much so that there was talk of starting their universe with Justice League and then branching out into solo films afterwards. Well we now know that this isn't the case. The DC shared universe began with Man of Steel and will be next continue in Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad, both releasing next year. Now we have been seeing set photos and hearing rumors for months but we have finally gotten our first extended look at both of these films when they each got three minute trailers at San Diego Comic-con. I figured I would take some time and share my opinions of the trailers.

We had seen a teaser for Batman V Superman a little while back but it didn't really show much. This is the most we have seen of the movie to date. Now I am on record as saying that I thought Man of Steel was a terrible movie. There were things to appreciate in it but overall the film just had too many problems that I couldn't look past. Needless to say I didn't have a lot of faith in Zack Snyder or Batman V Superman, especially after hearing of all of the character additions and cameos. Well looking at the first real trailer I can say that I do find a lot more aspects of this film interesting. We finally have a story. Bruce Wayne was in Metropolis when Superman was fighting Zod and looks to have lost some people he cared about. He goes on a vendetta against Superman feeling that someone that powerful is too dangerous. At the same time Clark Kent seems to want to track down a story of this supposed Batman. The world also seems to hold a grudge against Superman for the destruction in Metropolis, something many people had trouble with in Man of Steel, myself included. I think the idea of holding him responsible helps me get over the Man of Steel battle but doesn't really fix anything about that movie for me. It does however make me more interested in this sequel. Judging from the trailer this is definitely a Superman sequel but looks to be just as much a Batman film, and my takeaway from seeing Ben Affleck as Batman is that he looks like a great fit for this version of the character. He looks great as Bruce Wayne and really fills out the Batsuit, which also looks fantastic. Honestly Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all look really well realized. This however brings up the point of Wonder Woman. She feels very forced into this trailer which makes me fear she may be forced into the movie. My early prediction is that she will be the one to make these two come to their senses and realize they have to team up. I expect her to be present throughout the film and maybe only as Wonder Woman for a small portion.

One thing to notice is there are a lot of great looking heroic scenes in the trailer but Zack Snyder has always proved that he knows strong visuals. One thing that confuses me is the casting. So Superman looks to be in his thirties, while Batman is supposed to be older. Lex Luthor, played by Jessie Eisenberg, looks to be in his twenties at most. He also has hair in the trailer but we all know he goes bald somehow because they put out the previous image showing him as such. The ages of characters are just all over the place and it seems like they don't fit together. Even if we break off and look at Suicide Squad, Joker and Harley Quinn look very young and we are too believe they have been tangling with Batman for years? Long enough for the Joker to have killed Robin at some point? This is hinted at with the Robin costume spray painted by the Joker. A possible reference to A Death in The Family. Honestly the idea of a shared DC Universe is much more interesting than the Marvel universe but they are just make questionable decisions and the age of the cast is definitely one that stands out. The only real offense of this in the Superman V Batman trailer is Jessie Eaeinberg but honestly he's a great actor and his moments in the trailer work very well. "The red capes are coming" line is very haunting of how Lex feels about Superman and why he feels so threatened. Just with the history of Lex and Clark from the comics makes this interpretation of Luthor feel out of place.

So another thing to point out is some of the odd out of context imagery. There seems to be some flash back moments which are fine. I guess since it's a new Batman we have to see his origin again. One thing I noticed however is that there are some shots of soldiers wearing Superman logos on their arm fighting Batman who looks like he's been an underground resistance member. It feels very reminiscent of the Red Son story line  and makes me think we will see a hypothetical future, either from Wayne or Luthor. It's an interesting idea and honestly Superman as a bad guy is always the most interesting part of a Superman story to me. I can easily see it being the thought process for someone wanting to take down Superman and I'm very curious to see it in the context of the film.

So the next trailer that was released was for Suicide Squad. Now for those that don't know anything about the Suicide Squad comics I feel the trailer tells you everything you need to know. You get a series of DC villains released from prison to work for the government as mercenaries. If they fail, well then the government just washes their hands on the situation because hey, they're just prisoners. When Suicide Squad was announced I can say that this was the film I was more excited for but having seen both trailers now I can easily say my interests have swapped. Some of this is my fault because when the DC lineup was announced there was emphasis on these films being much darker than the Marvel films, which mimics the differences between the comics as well. For some reason I was expecting a more silly tone to Suicide Squad, maybe something along the lines of a balls out action movie with quips. What the trailer showed was a super serious film that I just wasn't expecting. The things that keep me interested in this film are the characters. Harley Quinn is an iconic character that everyone has been waiting to see in film and I feel that she is perfectly cast by Margot Robbie and the trailer is definitely heavily focused on her. Unfortunately the trailer doesn't show us much of the film, which they are still shooting, and is just a lot of character shots and scenes of the team walking. We see a few action shots including one involving Batman, which we've seen from the set photos and videos, but over all we are just getting the gist of who the Suicide Squad are and what they look like. 

So how do they look? Overall everyone looks great. Harley is the stand out and the one I'm most excited to see in the movie. Deadshot played by Will Smith is sort of an issue with me. At this point Will Smith has reached Tom Cruise status where I don't see the character that he's playing anymore, I just see Will Smith. He doesn't feel like a villain, he feels like an actor who thinks he's too big to be a straight up bad guy forced into a situation, but in all fairness I've never really read a lot of Deadshot material so maybe there's a lot of depth to that character that I Just don't know about. Now the major character to appear in the trailer, and the one that everyone is talking about, is Jared Leto's Joker. I have to say his actual performance seems fine. He's creepy and psychotic which is what you want to see. We all remember when the first picture of Leto in character was released and we saw the tattoos covering his body. There was a lot of negative responses to the tattoos but not everyone was convinced they would be in the movie. Well now we have our confirmation that the Joker will look like a Hot Topic reject in the film. Okay maybe that's harsh It's clear that I'm not a fan of the Joker's look. To be clear I liked his lines that he had in the trailer, I think he will be a fine Joker (though far from the best) but he is hindered by his look. Even the fans who want to defend it have to admit that this is not the version of Joker that we ideally wanted. I will obviously be holding off judgement until we see the film but so far Suicide Squad is looking less interesting to me. To be fair it's a long but bare bones trailer so hopefully we will see another before the movie releases that gives us more to look forward to.

So I would love to hear what everyone else thinks about the Comic-Con trailers. Feel free to sound off in the comments. So far I'm still skeptical but hopefully both movies blow us all away. I know I'm ready for some darker comic book movies.

Marvel's Avengers Age of Ultron Review

It's still hard to believe we live in a world where an Avengers movie exists, let alone two. The first was a spectacle to behold, and just amazing to think they pulled off a movie with such a big cast. It went on to do over a billion at the box office and was a world wide phenomenon. Something I'm sure the second will repeat. It's hard to re-capture the awe of that first team up but Marvel knows how to do things bigger and better and with Age of Ultron we were sure to see a super hero team up on an even larger scale. The real question is can it be pulled off a second time, and how well does it fare against the first?

Well I'll start off by saying that I like the first Avengers more. Now that doesn't mean this is a bad movie, I just think the first was a lot tighter in the sense of plot and writing. It's also worth noting that we had a build up to Loki being the villain in Avengers. We saw hints of it through the films, especially in the post credits for Captain America. We didn't get a build up to Ultron. When we come into the plot of Avengers 2 we see that Bruce Banner and Tony Stark have clearly been kicking this idea around for a while, yet we never got even a slight reference in any of the phase 2 films. This to me was a planning oversight that could have helped make the hype and set up for this film even better. Now I think the solo films in Phase 2 were, for the most part, better than anything in Phase 1. Iron Man 3 and Captain America 2 being the highlights. One thing that's always come up with any movie post Avengers is "Why doesn't anyone come help each other in their movies" and I wish we got a little more references to previous films and where characters were. We do get a lot of talk about SHIELD and it no longer existing, but mostly that's it aside from character mentions and cameos.

Now I think Loki was a better villain for the first team up, but Ultron is no slouch. He is wonderfully played by James Spader and the voice acting is impeccable work. A robot with a human like intelligence who for all intents and purposes acts human is a creepy aspect. The most interesting part of Ultron though is that he's a flawed villain. He's smarter than the Avengers but he has psychological issues he can't avoid and it gives him depth. He was designed to save humanity so in his plan his thoughts constantly come back to bettering the human species. He just wants to destroy it first. He's also not as threatening as I originally thought he was going to be. Just looking at him, he's just a robot. We've seen plenty of Iron Man armors or robots get destroyed already so how is this one robot supposed to stand up to all of the Avengers. Well he doesn't. Ultron isn't s much a body as he is an intelligence in the internet, which is something I had a small issue with. So since he is just an A.I. he can bounce from body to body which is an awesome aspect. I love the times they have him destroyed only to literally have another one appear right behind him. The only problem I have is how do you destroy something that can exist in the internet? Even if you destroy every robot couldn't his consciousness still exist in cyberspace? It's the same issue that came up in Terminator 3 with Skynet. It's a small nitpick but something that bothered me nonetheless. Ultron is technically immortal as long as there is a wifi connection and this is pretty much ignored as far as I noticed.

UPDATE: I was reminded that there is the scene where Vision grabs Ultron and disconnects him. I missed it the first time but I still feel a little more light should have been shined on that aspect. Shouldn't be so easy to miss.

With the first Avengers we spend a lot of the movie trying to get the team together and get along and you don't get a a lot of action scenes, just some key great ones. Age of Ultron however, we already have the team in full swing and the movie opens up with a great action scene and we only get more and more as the movie goes on. This movie is action packed and all of it is fantastic. I have to mention the ending last stand as a highlight. We get to see them battle in multiple different types of locations and there's a lot of combining powers to great effect. We've seen the Avengers fight before but now we have some new additions. Scarlet Witch has her telekinesis which makes her a dominant force on the battlefield and it's so satisfying to watch her rip robots in half with her mind. Her mind control is also a fun power that helps play into the story and the character development. She's able to mess with the Avengers minds and bring out their worst fears. Quicksilver however is an odd character in the sense that we already saw a cinematic version of Quicksilver last year in X-Men, which honestly I think was the better version, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson still brings his own flair to the character and is great in the role. It's awesome to see him use his powers throughout the movie and it looks very different from what we saw in Days of Future Past. There's a lot of great character work in this movie but I do feel like there's just a few too many. It's nice to see Don Cheadle get included as well as Falcon from The Winter Soldier, but between Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and The Vision it's almost a little much. Especially since The Vision get's little screen time so we don't get to know the character very much. Luckily it's all handled very well so it kind of masks the insanity of so many characters in the mix. A much needed addition in this film was more back story for Hawkeye. Now I know he catches the most heat and people call him the most useless member but I've always been a Hawkeye defender and he was awesome this time around and his back story just helped flesh out his character even more. What I did find weird is that he has a family and I always assumed that him and Black Widow were an item, but suddenly she's interested in Bruce Banner and that just seems to come out of nowhere, especially when all signs pointed to Hawkeye in the previous films.

There's still a lot of great writing in this movie but I honestly feel that everything was just better in the first movie. There are a lot of great lines (Hawkeye has some of my favorites) but I didn't find myself laughing out loud as much as the first film. This movie does have a much darker tone however and that is most likely the case. There's a lot of fighting within the group and no matter how awesome you think the Hulk vs Iron Man fight looks in the trailer, it's way better in the final movie. I honestly just wish that was it's own movie, either Hulk 2 or Iron Man 4. The whole movie just could have been a little more tighter like the first was. There's a lot decisions made that just feel like "Okay we need to get to the next scene" where as in the first film everything felt fluid as we moved from beat to beat. While I still think it's a fantastic film it just feels slightly inferior to the first on a technical level, but maybe more fun and exciting on a spectacle level. I give Age of Ultron the same score I give the first Avengers which is a four out of five. This movie is worth your time and may be the most fun you will have, but if you're looking for a better story than the first you may be slightly disappointed.